Side Effects May Vary

I almost laughed, but I stopped myself. I didn’t want to embarrass her or make her feel like this wasn’t okay. Smiling, I said, “Like, are you my girlfriend? I don’t know.” I paused. “Do you want to be?” A weight in my chest lifted, like a person terrified of driving who’d just realized the one thing standing between them and the open road was their own damn self. I’d never asked a girl that question before. With Alice, it was everything or nothing. There was no between. It felt good to take these steps. The crazy thing was that with Debora it was easy.

Her feet bounced beneath the table and her lips did this thing where she was trying not to smile, so much so that the corners of her lips quivered. “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s try that.”

We finished our desserts, and when my foot touched hers, she didn’t move.

While we were waiting for our check, Debora scrolled through her phone.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Not lifting her eyes from the screen, she replied, “Forwarding you my weekly schedule. I’ll need you to send me your work schedule too.” She looked up. “Are those pretty consistent on a week-to-week basis? Dennis’s are.”

Dennis. I’d told him about our date a few days ago during lunch. When he finally realized I wasn’t kidding, he told me I was demented for ever wanting to date Debora. Last night, though, at work, we walked out to my car and he said, “Hey, you know I think Debora’s totally crazy, but try not to drag her into all your Alice drama, okay?” I nodded and we drove home like everything was normal.

The waitress brought my change.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

“Perfect.”

When I dropped Debora off, I tugged on her hand before she walked up the steps to her front door. I wanted to kiss her, but I couldn’t risk Dennis seeing me kiss his twin sister. He knew I was taking her out, and he wasn’t protective or anything, but if he saw this, I think he might be eternally grossed out. I didn’t touch her face or her waist like I might have done with Alice. I wasn’t ready for the two of them to share the same territory. Holding Debora’s hands in mine, I leaned down to her and pressed my lips to hers. I opened my mouth a little, and she did too, but only to whisper, “Good night, Harvey.”

Alice. Then.

I’d heard people say that being pregnant during the summer was miserable, but that shit had nothing on cancer. The humidity had exaggerated every little side effect of my illness. Nosebleeds, bloody gums, and aching bones combined with the fact that I was always either freezing or boiling meant that I was never quite comfortable. The life I remembered seemed like years away. That’s how it felt, getting closer to the end. Maybe it was a self-defense mechanism, but everything and everyone felt distant. Even Harvey. Prom had been a month and a half ago, but it felt like a whole other life—one that was worth living.

Every day was the same thing: sleep, eat, watch TV, barf. And pain. Always pain. Dr. Meredith had tried a cocktail of different painkillers to ease it all. The meds that worked the best always knocked me out and made me someone I wasn’t. Even then, though, there were aches that couldn’t be medicated. I guessed there were just some things that had to be felt. Sometimes the discomfort was good because it reminded me that if I was going to live with such pain, then my life had to have been worth it. I had to have been worth it. And nothing I’d done lately had made me feel worthy of anything much.

I sat on the front porch, hoping the muggy heat might thaw my bones. At least I didn’t have to worry about getting my hair all sweaty, there was always that. Since I’d stopped chemo, small patches of hair had begun to grow back, but it looked so lame that I kept shaving it. Closing my eyes, I let my body feel the noises of my neighborhood—a barking dog a few houses down, a lawn mower one street over, a sprinkler spitting water onto the sidewalk across the street.

“But, Mom-my!”

“Courtney, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”

I opened my eyes, my attention following the voices. My next-door neighbor stuck out her lip and crossed her arms in pure, unadulterated eight-year-old contempt. “They’re going to kill him and it will be all your fault.”

“Courtney, our air conditioner went out last week and that was very expensive to replace.” Miss Porter had enough patience to sustain a continent. “I just cannot afford the adoption fee until after my next paycheck on the fifteenth.” Miss Porter lived in the lone rental house on our street. It had belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Eugene. A few years ago, they both went to live in a nursing home, and their kids started renting out the place. Most of the street was still pretty pissed about the rotating tenants.

“But . . . but the lady at the shelter said they’d have to put him down tomorrow at two if no one adopts him!”

“I shouldn’t have taken you to the shelter until after I got paid, and I really am sorry about that, but my hands are tied until after the fifteenth.”